UPS Went Poof

This morning, my uninterruptable power supply (UPS) for my computer went poof. It really made that sound, and then there was a chemical smell in the room. It had acted up a few times in the last couple of months, but I thought the worst that could happen was that my computers would lose power. Well, this smelled a bit more dangerous, so I decided to replace it. I already picked up a new UPS from Office Depot (who wanted to sell it in the store for $99.99, but I matched it to $89.99 on the website) and it’s charging, but I haven’t switched the old one out, which is unplugged now. I didn’t want to risk an electrical fire while I was at work.

Update

It seems like there was another casualty: The reverse converter that I had been using to power the German flatbed scanner is apparently dead. That’s actually not so bad, I should have replaced that with a regular power supply anyway and then just cut the wire and attached the original power connector on the scanner side. The reverse converter probably ate 30 W just by itself all the time.

About Mathias

Software development engineer. Principal developer of DrJava. Recent Ph.D. graduate from the Department of Computer Science at Rice University.